Death Star
| Death Star | |
|---|---|
 Original Death Star | |
| First appearance | |
| Created by | George Lucas |
| Designed by | Colin Cantwell |
| Information | |
| Affiliation | Galactic Empire |
| Launched | Constructed in space, Above Geonosis. |
| Combat vehicles | TIE Fighters and TIE Bombers |
| General characteristics | |
| Class | Orbital battle station Weapon of mass destruction |
| Armaments | Superlaser |
| Defenses | Turbolasers, Laser cannons, Tractor beams, and Ion cannons |
| Maximum speed | Faster than light speed |
| Propulsion | Imperial Hyperdrive |
| Power | Able to destroy a planet with one shot of the superlaser |
| Width | 160 km (99 mi) (Death Star I); 200 km (120 mi) (Death Star II) |
The Death Star is a fictional massive space station and superweapon featured in the Star Wars space-opera franchise. Constructed by the autocratic Galactic Empire, the Death Star is capable of obliterating entire planets, and serves to enforce the Empire's reign of terror. It appears as a hundreds of kilometers wide mobile space station that has the shape of a spherical moon or planetoid.[1][2]
Appearing in the original film Star Wars (1977), the Death Star serves as the central plot point and setting for the film, and is destroyed in an assault by the Rebel Alliance during the climax of the film, with the prequel film Rogue One (2016) and the television series Andor (2022–2025) exploring its construction. A larger second Death Star is being built in the events of the film Return of the Jedi (1983), featuring substantially improved capabilities compared to its predecessor, before it is destroyed by the Rebel Alliance while under construction.
Since its first appearance, the Death Star has become a cultural icon and a widely recognized element of the Star Wars franchise. It inspired numerous similar superweapons in fiction as well as in other Star Wars works. The film The Force Awakens (2015) introduces Starkiller Base, a planet (Ilum) converted by the First Order into a Death Star-like superweapon. While more powerful and technologically advanced than both Death Stars, it is also destroyed by the Resistance. The film The Rise of Skywalker (2019) introduces the Final Order, a massive fleet of Xyston-class Star Destroyers built by the Sith Eternal, individual warships each carrying "planet-killing" weapons; the film also features the remains of the second Death Star, on the ocean moon of Kef Bir.
Origin and design
[edit]According to franchise creator George Lucas, his initial outline for the Star Wars saga did not feature the Death Star in the portion that would be adapted as the first film. When he set to creating the first act of this outline as a feature, he borrowed the Death Star concept from the third act.[3]
Although details, such as the superlaser's location, shifted between different concept models during the production of Star Wars (1977),[a] the notion of the Death Star being a large, spherical space station over 100 kilometers (62 mi) in diameter was consistent in all of them.[4] George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell,[5] who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.[6] In Empire of Dreams, a documentary about the filming and production of Star Wars, Cantwell revealed that the Death Star, built by John Stears,[7][8] was originally supposed to be a perfect sphere. The model was constructed in two separate pieces, however, and wasn't fitting together as planned, resulting in a depression around the equator. Hoping to save himself a week of work to fill the depression, Cantwell suggested a trench to Lucas, which liked the idea.[5][6][9] The buzzing sound counting down to the Death Star firing its superlaser comes from the Flash Gordon serials.[10] Portraying an incomplete yet powerful space station posed a problem for Industrial Light & Magic's modelmakers for Return of the Jedi.[11] Only the front side of the 137-centimeter (54 in) model was completed, and the image was flipped horizontally for the final film.[11] Both Death Stars were depicted by a combination of complete and sectional models and matte paintings.[4][11]
Special effects
[edit]
The grid plan animation shown during the Rebel briefing before the Death Star attack in A New Hope was an actual computer-graphics simulation developed by Larry Cuba at the University of Illinois Chicago alongside computer graphics researcher Tom DeFanti.[12] George Lucas had recruited Cuba for the project after becoming familiar with his and Gary Imhoff's work with CalArts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.[13]
After filming was complete, the original model, as well as one of the surface setpieces, were to be thrown out, but they were eventually salvaged.[14][15][16]
The Death Star explosions featured in the Special Edition of A New Hope and in Return of the Jedi are rendered with a Praxis Effect, wherein a flat ring of matter erupts from the explosion.[17]
Depiction
[edit]The original Death Star was introduced in the original Star Wars film,[a] which later had elements of its backstory explored in the prequel films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the animated series The Clone Wars, Rebels and The Bad Batch, the 2016 anthology film Rogue One, and the series Andor. The second Death Star appears in Return of the Jedi, and a similar superweapon, Starkiller Base, appears in